1980s book casts insights in molding of Steve Kerr’s leadership

Browsing around an extensive library of sports books, I recently came across some telling insights into Steve Kerr’s character. They are packaged within a single work, John Feinstein’s “A Season Inside.” Although I highly recommend the book as a whole, focus here on the highlights as they relate to the Warriors’ intriguing coach.

Feinstein’s mission was to spend the entire 1987-88 season covering college basketball. He saw 104 games in all, east to west, relentless in his desire to be thorough. But he discovered a penetrating theme, one to which he returned, time and time again, and turned into the book’s definitive statement: Kerr’s evolution as a man.

As we’ve learned with so many great ones — from Red Holzman and Dick Motta to Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich — an NBA coach has to be many things: highly intelligent, brutally tough and properly sensitive, with a knack for sarcasm, well-timed levity and think-on-your-feet spontaneity. Kerr was all of those things by the time he reached his senior year at Arizona University, fully prepared — although he surely didn’t realize it at the time — for the NBA coaching grind.

Feinstein’s initial fascination was one shared by many: Kerr’s emotional recovery from the assassination of his father. A well-known educator and expert on Middle East affairs, Malcolm Kerr became president of American University in Beirut — a dream job, but one at the center of hatred and turmoil. In January of 1984, midway through Steve’s freshman year, the elder Kerr was shot twice in the head as he departed an elevator on his way to work.

Just two days later, Arizona had a home game scheduled against Arizona State. Shattered beyond comprehension but steeling himself, Steve felt he should suit up and play, saying, “It was the only thing to do. My dad would have been very disappointed in me if I hadn’t played. What’s more, there was nothing I could do at that point. I knew my family was safe. I was going to the memorial service the next day. It just wouldn’t have made much sense not to play.”

TUCSON, ARIZONA - 1991-1996: Steve Kerr #25 of the University of Arizona Wildcats looks to pass during a season game in Tucson, Arizona . (Photo by: Bernstein Associates/Getty Images)

TUCSON, ARIZONA - 1991-1996: Steve Kerr #25 of the University of Arizona Wildcats looks to pass during a season game in Tucson, Arizona . (Photo by: Bernstein Associates/Getty Images)

Photo: Bernstein Associates, Getty Images

Photo: Bernstein Associates, Getty Images

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TUCSON, ARIZONA - 1991-1996: Steve Kerr #25 of the University of Arizona Wildcats looks to pass during a season game in Tucson, Arizona . (Photo by: Bernstein Associates/Getty Images)

TUCSON, ARIZONA - 1991-1996: Steve Kerr #25 of the University of Arizona Wildcats looks to pass during a season game in Tucson, Arizona . (Photo by: Bernstein Associates/Getty Images)

Photo: Bernstein Associates, Getty Images

1980s book casts insights in molding of Steve Kerr’s leadership

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Feinstein: “It is difficult to imagine the emotion of that evening. Even with Arizona’s arch-rival in the building, few people in the McKale Center that night were really focused on basketball. The violence of the shooting that had taken place thousands of miles away was tangible as everyone stood in silence. Kerr broke down. So did many in the crowd.”

Calm under pressure

Many years later, Kerr would become known for his remarkable calm under pressure, to the point of hitting a last-second shot that gave Chicago the 1997 NBA title. None of it ever surprised the spectators who witnessed Kerr’s performance in Tucson. Coming off the bench, Kerr got the ball 18 seconds after taking the floor, shot an open 20-footer and nailed it. He scored 12 points on 5-for-7 shooting as Arizona scored a surprising win, and as Feinstein noted, “The legend of Steve Kerr was born that night.”

Kerr won a starting job as a sophomore, moved to point guard as a junior, fought through the setback of major knee surgery that cost him an entire season, then became the unquestioned heart of the 1987-88 team that won the Pac-10 title and reached the NCAA tournament semifinals before losing to Oklahoma.

“Best leader I’ve ever seen,” coach Lute Olson said. “If he told this team that green was orange, they would all believe him.”

That’s about the time Feinstein discovered a side of Kerr that continues to serve him well. “You want to know why I’m the leader, it’s simple,” Kerr said. “Last summer we went to France. I speak French. The other guys don’t. Every time they wanted to hit on a girl, they needed me to interpret. That’s when I became the leader.”

The crowds at McKale Center had taken to chanting his name during the introductions for every game, something Kerr explained in typically self-effacing style: “When I get older, I’m sure I’ll love showing tapes of it all to my kids. They’ll say to me, 'Gee, Daddy, you must have been a great player.’ And I’ll say, 'Yeah, I was.’ Then I’ll put the tape away before the game starts, so they won’t find out the truth.”

Self-effacing nature

Feinstein noted that an Arizona teammate actually tried pretending to be Kerr, hoping it might get him a few more dates. “He says it works,” Kerr said. “Funny, it never worked all that well for me.”

Through the book, I learned that one of Kerr’s classmates at Palisades High (Los Angeles County) was Mike Silver, who went on to attend Cal and later become one of the top NFL writers in the country. They were close friends, connected by a deep admiration for the wisecrack, and as sports editor of the Daily Californian, Silver asked Kerr to write a column ahead of Arizona’s game in Berkeley. Kerr responded with a hilarious piece that took shots at the student cheering section and the school in general.

I called Silver to get a little more on Kerr, the high-school student. “He was a great, great dude — maybe not shy, but the classic late bloomer who hasn’t really come into his own socially,” he said. “I was sort of like that, too. We had no game. Girls kind of liked us, but we didn’t know how to deal with it. We were mostly into sports — specifically, goofing on the conventions of sports. For example, in an American history class we had together, we’d sit in the back riffing on historical events in Howard Cosell’s voice. Our high-school paper was called the Tideline, and we co-wrote a weekly column together, just flat-out trying to mess with people with inside jokes and no regard for libel standards. I think it was widely read. Steve’s such a good guy and very self-deprecating, but he’s got an edge to him. If he’d wanted to be a satirist, he would have been really, really good.”

Fierce competitor

As a competitor? “Oh, my God,” Silver said. “Fiercely competitive. I mean, this is a guy who got in a fight with Michael Jordan (during a Bulls practice in 1995). Jordan started it by punching him in the head, but Steve knew he couldn’t back down or show any weakness. What a great image.”

As Feinstein quotes Kerr during that senior year at Arizona, “It’s nice that people like me the way they do. But to tell you the truth, sometimes I get tired of it. I mean, if I hear or read one more time that I’m Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, I’ll throw up. I’m like any other guy my age. I like to have fun. I like to drink a few beers, and there are times when I’m an —hole. When my family reads all this stuff about how great I am, they think it’s really funny.”

Added Steve’s younger brother, Andrew: “He can be brutal. Sometimes he can get on people and really tear them apart. But most of the time he’s funny about it, so he gets away with it.”

The book takes a disturbing turn as Feinstein recalls the scene for Arizona’s late-season road game at Arizona State. Less than an hour before tip-off, with Kerr and his teammates in a casual shootaround, a small group of Arizona State students began taunting him: “PLO, PLO, Hey Kerr, where’s your dad?” they chanted. And then, “PLO, PLO, go back to Beirut.”

As Feinstein wrote, “It was, without a doubt, the most appalling behavior ever displayed by any group (calling them fans would be an insult to fans everywhere) at a college basketball game. Given the ugly incidents that have taken place over the years, this is no small statement.”

Kerr: “At first, I tried to ignore it. I took a couple more shots, but I was shaking and my body actually felt kind of numb. I had to go and sit down. I just couldn’t believe anyone would do that.” And when his feelings turned to outright anger, “I just wanted to get those people somehow.”

Channeling his anger

Interviewed after the game — after he’d hit six three-pointers by halftime and led a 101-73 rout — Kerr called those people “the scum of the Earth. I know it’s a little unfair to be angry with their players and coaches. They had nothing to do with it. But I was so angry, I wanted to beat them by 50.”

Every author seeks to create a penetrating final chapter, and these were Feinstein’s concluding words: “Perhaps no one in the long history of college basketball went through more during a college career and refused, time and again, to allow himself to be beaten. He dealt with rejection before he ever played a college game and then the unspeakable tragedy of his father’s assassination, the heartbreak of his knee injury, and the sickness at Arizona State. Never once did Steve Kerr feel sorry for himself. More remarkably, he never let anyone else feel sorry for him. He made college basketball better by being a part of it.

“He became a hero in Tucson not because of the way he played, but because of the way he lived. Always, the people of Tucson wanted to give Steve Kerr something. Always, he gave back. In the end, the trade they made was a fair one: Tucson gave its heart to Steve Kerr. And he gave his heart to Tucson. In the process, he made everyone who came to know his story smile. He also made them laugh. And cry. His team lost its last basketball game. But no one has ever defeated Steve Kerr.”